Sunday, April 15, 2007

Arithmomania: Count to 100 Before Reading This

1920

A Peculiar Disease: Arithmomania

Arithmomania — the medical name for another disease — is full of interest. In this the patient has the irresistible impulse to count a certain number of times before doing anything. One case recorded is of a girl who had to tap on the edge of the bed nine times before getting into it; a hundred times before brushing her teeth; to knock three times on a window by the side of the door, and a similar number of times on the door itself before she would unlock it.


Private Park

If the rear yard is properly planted with a border of flowering shrubs and perennial flowers, has a velvety green lawn and a few shade or fruit trees, it will give the family a quiet, peaceful little private park, in which all can enjoy the moonlight during the hot summer evenings without making a long, tiresome trip to the parks. This is the height of pleasure afforded by a well-planted home yard.

—Bedford Gazette, Bedford, Pennsylvania, January 9, 1920, page 4.

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